


But Not Houdini (Hold The Water)

by Moa_in_the_Moon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Engagement, First Time, Fluff, Hiatus, I Don't Even Know, John is a Saint, Johnlock Fluff, Love, M/M, Nightmares, Possessive Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Sad, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:31:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moa_in_the_Moon/pseuds/Moa_in_the_Moon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's just a magic trick."<br/>Now that Sherlock is back at 221b John thought the nightmares would end, but they've only gotten worse.  Based on the song "Hold The Water" by Ormonde.</p>
<p>    I’d sit by you in the night/ When you get those shakes you get/Doesn’t mean I’m damaged/ That I find some peace in it/ If you think I don’t want you/ I’ll make a liar of you now/ I’ll have you sleeping/ Your sheep are bleating/ I won’t let the fire get too high/ Close all the shutters, keep you dry/ Safe as long as you and I are alone/ Hold the water/ Nothing on the floor/ Pin the dark against the wall/ Unfold your body/ The day has led to it/ The wool was shorn/ Just to have you inside of it/ If you think I don’t want you/ I’ll make a liar of you now/ I’ll match your beating/ And join your breathing/ I won’t let the fire get too high/ Close all the shutters, keep you dry/ Safe as long as you and I are alone/ Hold the water/ Nothing on the floor/Pin the darkness against the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Buried Alive! (An introduction)

He’s scrambling to find something to unlatch it—hands moving across the glass, fucking military grade plexiglass from hell, impenetrable and absolute, and so dry on the outside, not a drop of water spilling forth.  The thing is airtight—round and diffuse, all curve, a never ending tessellation of surface, the small escape hatch on the top has sealed, the keys swallowed by the man inside.

And—oh God, the man inside—Sherlock has always been so cool about everything.  A gun to the head is a shrug and a blank stare, even a panic attack moment brought on by Jim Moriarty is met with a detached cool—but not now, not this.  Sherlock is letting go of too much oxygen, he’s panicking, he’s stuck, and John can’t open the fucking door.  He can’t break through the glass, and time is running out.  The water is filled to the surface and there isn’t even a single, merciful air pocket to provide Sherlock with much needed oxygen.

If he had his gun he could break through it, he could make the water drain out—

But his pocket is empty; the sig is nowhere to be found. 

Sherlock is pounding against the glass, his eyes trying to focus through the water, pleading for John to do _something-_ -  Sherlock’s hands are moving across and up and down, desperately trying to find a way out.  His body is an awful contortion, spinning in the water, unable to balance himself against anything.  His legs kick out and up and beneath, trying to secure themselves against something.  He’s screaming, John can hear the noise through the water, the way it is both tampered down and amplified at the same time.  John knows that he is screaming something in return, some garbled language that can only be called the pure linguistic distillation of desperation.

Sherlock’s movements are jerky and somehow abbreviated, his eyes wide, his last stores of precious oxygen coming out of his mouth in explosions of air bubbles.

John screams as Sherlock’s arms twitch, his eyes beginning to fade.

One last look, and then--

 

* * *

John wakes up gasping, like it’s his lungs that are filling up with water, not the figure who is lying awake beside him.  He can feel Sherlock frowning against the darkness, the duvet sighing with each infinitesimal movement of flesh, muscle and nerve ending.  The silence and the stillness and the sudden blindness of waking up from a dream flooded in white light to a room with heavy curtains and no lamplight makes John reel for a moment, gripping the bed sheets, willing his breath to stabilize for long enough to make the spinning stop.  It’s the tiny stop-gap between the nightmare and finally registering that he is awake that he feels Sherlock’s arms tucking around his body—all jawbone, sternum and pronounced hip bones, heat and warmth and pulse and so _dry_.  He can feel Sherlock almost shushing him, an almost undetectable rumbling vibration in the back of his throat.

John opens his mouth to speak, and can feel that it has gone dry.  He doesn’t know how much he’s been yelling, only knows that his body is a thing beyond his control when he sinks into sleep.  He wonders if Sherlock has put it together yet, toggled the details into some working order and deduced that the dreams are no longer of sand and dirt and rocky terrain, of mortar shells and flash grenades and roadside bombers with their weapons strapped to their chests.  His dreams no longer have the smell of Kandahar, the sulfur sweetness of cypress, cedar and pine, the low rotten notes of bad plumbing, the wet scent of irrigation canals and the way he could almost smell the stars when the nights were cold enough—and the other smells: endless supplies of antibacterial solution, salves, the hot copper rush of blood, the dark charred smell of burnt hair, the nauseating rift of burnt human flesh, vomit and shit and the occasional sweetness of deodorant, toothpaste, talcum powder, chalk.  He doesn’t feel the phantom pain in his shoulder in his dreams, doesn’t feel a bullet and shrapnel get lodged in his muscle and tendons and bone, the most alien pain blossoming through his body.

Sherlock’s lips move against John’s jaw, his breath heavy and sour from sleep, his lips lazy.  “Sleep.”  He insists, pressing a chaste kiss against John’s flesh, a hand curling around John’s hand.  “Gotobed.”  He insists, one long drawl before yawning, his leg hitching around John’s waist.  John swears he can almost feel the faint pumping of Sherlock’s femoral artery, and is shaking with relief. 

“It was only a dream, love.”  John half-whispers, kissing Sherlock’s eyebrow.  His left hand is shaking, his leg aches.  He dreads sleep like a child, doesn’t want to see it again, doesn’t want to watch Sherlock die in front of him in another world while he is alive and well and in his arms in this one. 

_Your worst fears lie in anticipation._

When John is finally asleep Sherlock sits up, done with feigning his routine of exhaustion.  He watches John’s breath, the rise and fall of his chest, scans his body for any sign that the nightmares will return.  He tucks himself into John’s body, and waits for the next one to come.


	2. Water Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock considers a new case, and tries to make John forget in the shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some good old fashioned shower sex is rampant in this chapter. Enjoy.

Sherlock has been awake for hours, transferred the entirety of his limbs and torso and wild hair to the sitting room, planted horizontally on the sofa, his fingers tapping nervously against the leather backing.  He’s counting underneath his breath, going up to ten and back to zero, trying to work something out.  _A Gordian Knot, a quick switch, a plate of lightening stuck inside gel, which way now_ —he blinks and shuts his eyes, counts to ten, and then slowly back down to one, making each word _count for something_.  He stops on five, he stops again on three.  He is mouthing words in between, his knees jostling about as he struggles against some vague thing that won’t present itself with any clarity.

“Five… Three… Five… Three.”  He murmurs, alternating the words in his mouth.  “1972, the 1970’s.  Not enough data!”  He shouts, annoyed that John isn’t already sitting in his chair, reading the morning paper.  It takes him more time than he has to spare to remind himself that John hasn’t made him his cup of tea this morning—this of all mornings, when he wouldn’t even turn down a slice of toast.  He sets his hands together and anchors them beneath his chin, trying to think without John’s presence.  He gives up and taps ferociously against the sofa again, swinging his body around to sit up.

He’s hit by the more than frustrating reminder that he is out of patches and John is _asleep_ , and Sherlock doesn’t have the time or the will to drag himself down to the shops and get himself a new box—didn’t he tell John to buy him a new box last week?  Or had that been yesterday?  _Irrelevant._   After a few tense seconds of deliberation Sherlock waves a thought away, shrugging before he reaches underneath the sofa to produce his secret stash and a plastic white bic lighter.

“The 1970’s.”  He rolls the decade around in his mouth as though he could taste some clue in it before lighting the cigarette that is now hanging from his lips, taking a long and much deserved drag.  He’s convinced himself that he is the only man in London with any sort of olfactory skill and doesn’t bother to get up and take his cigarette outside, instead electing for opening the window closet to the sofa.  In a pinch he can tell John that he’s been smoking for research—cigarettes were still de rigeur in the 1970’s, weren’t they?

He rolls his eyes and considers the research that he still has to do: the annoying threads of data that don’t want to knit themselves together.  He toes at a box that has fallen onto its side, papers spilling out onto the floor.  He hums the tune of “The Mountain King” and takes another drag, exhaling in the general direction of the window, letting aerodynamics and suction do the job it was intended to do.

“Bloody hell, Sherlock, not in the fucking flat.” John erupts from the kitchen, having emerged from their room— _their room_ , Sherlock has to remind himself.  Sherlock looks down at the half-smoked Gauloises and frowns, ashing on the floor. 

“John, it’s for research.”  He huffs, arching his neck back for another drag.  The ember on the tip crackles on the paper, blue ribbons of smoke unfurling into the air. 

“I don’t give a damn if you are smoking under orders of the sodding Queen.”  John replies, his shoulders stiff with tension.  “Take the cigarette _outside._ ” He scowls.  _End. Stop._ is somehow pronounced, he doesn’t have to say it.

Sherlock looks at John, giving him a long-suffering glare.  He inhales another drag and then flicks it out the window demonstratively.

“I was done with it, anyway.”

* * *

 

“Of course the gate is locked.”  John nearly spits out, his teeth chattering.  “Do you think that they just leave cemetery gates unlocked throughout the night?”  He asks, shaking his head, trying to fight off the feeling that his ears might just actually fall off this time.

Sherlock doesn’t respond.  He’s looking up at the lich gate, the row of ornately spiked wrought iron posts that top the fence.

“Sherlock, let’s go.”  John insists, rubbing his hands together.  He hadn’t even thought to bring gloves.

“Who locks a cemetery up?”  Sherlock asks absently, as though it is a complete abomination to keep the living and the dead in separate compartments over night.

“You read the files, you know _why.”_

“Ugh, those.  Tedious.  Everything that the police were doing in the ‘70’s was a mistake.”  He says, looking for the best spot to climb over the railings and get into the cemetery.

“It’s –5 out here, let’s _go_.” John is trying to convince Sherlock that going into the cemetery tonight is a bad idea—not because breaking and entering is stupid, or that they won’t be able to see anything—he’s trying to appeal to whatever sense of sympathy or comradery he might have.  A gust of wind set the trees to creaking, the ice clinging to their branches moaning under the weight of the winter.  “We can come back tomorrow, I swear.  Let’s just go for the night.”

Sherlock stood blinking, turning his head to look at John.  His eyes softened for a moment, making him pause in his deliberations.  John could almost hear his thoughts— _but the work, the game is on!_ —and prepared himself to be forced to scale the fence and wander around in the dark, following every whim of the mad, brilliant, _utterly fucking gorgeous_ Sherlock Holmes.

Instead Sherlock nodded quietly, stepping towards the doctor.  His breath was suspended in a crystal white cloud around his mouth, high cheek bones going coral with the cold, his lips stained with an undertone of blue.  His collar and scarf broke the chill, but not enough.  He took John’s hands and rubbed them between his gloves, letting their foreheads touch. 

“Okay.  Home.” He agreed.  He’d seen what he’d needed to for the night, and John was right.  They’d have the morning. He wanted to argue with John, to insist, to force the issue—but couldn’t. The Work and John had become one entity, and without John at his side all ventures seemed entirely meaningless.

* * *

   
Sherlock pulls the shower curtain open, no longer needing to explain his actions.  The bathroom is humming with the white noise of the water from the shower head hitting the porcelain tub, the silent cacophony of steam and the faint smell of Sherlock's soap and John's shampoo mixing with toilet bowl disinfectant, toothpaste and fresh towels.  They’ve moved past the first awkward moments when John insisted on questioning everything, nervously trying to figure out what each new boundary breached meant.  
  
Now John’s eyes are still closed, his body under a steam of hot water, his hair slicked back with water, his skin raising in gooseflesh from where cold air hit him when Sherlock had opened the curtain.  Wordlessly Sherlock drops to his knees, refusing to waste time.  He runs his hands up John’s hips and the outer musculature of his thighs, the skin clean and almost elastic, a barrier of water between them.  He plants his lips against the femoral artery, sucking it, feeling its pulse underneath his mouth, feeling John’s skin tense underneath the suction of their bodies being held together by air and moisture.  Water trails around his lips, dripping onto Sherlock from John's body, errant drops making his hair feel heavier, his hands completely soaked.    
  
John groans, his hands threading through Sherlock’s hair.  More water, more of what had been on John.  
  
“God, Sherlock.”  He says in a lazy drawl, his head dipping forward, his eyelashes dripping.  
  
Sherlock responds by kissing the pubis above John’s already hard cock, using teeth and tongue and lips to draw out more low groans from John, to taste the warm salt of his flesh mixing with the almost metallic flavour of the water and the high notes of left over soap.  Sherlock knows that the nightmares have been getting worse—knows that John’s been screaming his name from some secret, dark place in his mind.  He wants to pull those dark thoughts out from John’s skin, replace whatever black thing is inhabiting that perfect skull with something far better—his lips noisily kissing and sucking at the base of John’s cock, his hands cupping his balls, his throat murmuring _John_ as he drags his tongue over his shaft.    
  
Sherlock plants his hands firmly on John’s hips, using his body as leverage.  He takes John’s cock into his mouth, using his tongue to swirl around the glans, his mouth being coated in a considerable amount of pre-cum.  John groans again, his hips threatening to buck forward.  John's hands search for a place to stablisize themselves, palm flat agaisnt the slick tiled wall.  Sherlock takes this as encouragement and sucks all of John’s cock into his mouth, swallowing until his nose is against John’s pubis and his throat is clenching, threatening to choke.  He relaxes as much as possible, trying to make his latent gag reflex work for him, not against him—he allows each muscle in the back of his mouth to spasm and tighten, his mouth to flood with saliva while his eyes began to water.  He sticks his tongue out for more pressure, encouraging John to let go and fuck his face until he cums down his throat.  _Let go of everything._  
  
John responds carefully, though no longer as timid as he’d been before, no longer under the illusion that Sherlock was a glass doll that could easily be broken.  John thrusts his hips forward, inspiring a sound close to vomiting from Sherlock.  He looks down into his eyes, still making sure that this was okay, that this was good.  Sherlock’s eyes are filled with tears, but they lock with John’s with absolute confidence.  He pulls John’s hips forward, moaning.  Sherlock wants this, wants for John to let go of everything and be fully inside of him without worrying that his every move was an infraction, a problem, a step over some invisible line in the proverbial sand.    
  
John’s hands wrap around Sherlock’s head and forces him down further, until his lips are smashing against his flesh, kissing his pubis while his cock does a disappearing act.  John is crying out, an animal grunt from the back of his throat.  "Fuck, Sherlock, there, fuck, oh God, yes, love..."  He intones, he keens, he repeats, he begs.  He's losing control, thrusting in with considerable confidence a few more times before he is cumming, sobbing and gasping for breath, repeating Sherlock’s name like an incantation.  
  
 _This isn’t the voice he’s been using while he screams in his sleep_ , Sherlock thinks as he swallows, pulling off of John’s cock, ropes of saliva hanging from his lips.  He cleans his mouth and stands up, pulling John close to him, his entire body threatening to collapse after his orgasm.  The only sounds are John's ragged breath, his heart beating like mad in his chest, and the steady flow from the shower head.

**Author's Note:**

> The story is based both around Harry Houdini's escape tricks and the album Machine by Ormonde, specifically the song "Hold the Water". The quote "Your worst fears lie in anticipation" comes from Balzac, but is also an important line in Mad Men. Please feel free to share, translate, whatever you want to do with this story. Clearly I have no rights to Sherlock, but I adore the hell out of it.


End file.
